Researchers from Pitzer College in the United States have proposed to combine regenerative agriculture with agrivoltaics in an effort to maximize the benefits of both activities.
Regenerative agriculture is a farming approach that revitalizes soil, ecosystems, and communities, going beyond merely sustaining production. It actively improves and enriches the land over time through practices like cover cropping, no-till farming, and rotational grazing, which restore soil health and enhance biodiversity. Techniques such as agroforestry, composting, and polycultures further strengthen ecosystems, creating a system that nourishes the soil, supports communities, and produces sustainable food.
“Regenerative Agrivoltaics does not necessarily require higher capital expenses than conventional agrivoltaics,” the research lead author, Kevin B. Grell, told pv magazine. “In fact regenerative practices tend to substitute capital input for labor input. In regions where ambient heat reaches a point where the efficiency of the panels are affected, regenerative land management practices may actually contribute with a stronger ambient cooling than conventional practices, thus increasing the PV yield, and in turn lowering the levelized cost of energy (LCOE).
“Different regions face different challenges related to the production of food and energy,” co-author Sophie Parker added. “For example, warm and dry regions face challenges related to the irrigation of crops. Rainy regions face challenges related to maximizing the efficiency of electrical production from PV sources given limited sunlight. Locations closer to the poles experience greater seasonal fluctuation in daylength, meaning that crop production is seasonally restricted, and solar panel tilt requires more seasonal adjustment. The deployment of regenerative agriculture could be used to address some of these challenges, but the details of how to modify any particular regenerative agrivoltaic site to address these challenges will be region-specific.”
Join us on March 5 for the Dual harvest, double trouble: Tackling EPC barriers in agrivoltaics design pv magazine session in English language at KEY – The Energy Transition Expo in Rimini. Experts will share insights on current agrivoltaic technologies, key design choices and the main barriers to standardized, scalable dual‑use projects in Europe and Italy, including region‑specific EPC issues. In the Inland Empire of Southern California, The Nature Conservancy and Pitzer College are part of a collaborative group led by the Robert Redford Conservancy that established a regenerative agrivoltaics site at the California Polytechnic University at Pomona’s Spadra Farm. This site’s growing season conditions are hot and dry. “There, we have the ability to study how the regenerative agricultural practice of compost addition, coupled with PV deployment, could enhance soil moisture and potentially reduce the need for irrigation. While the addition of compost alone, or the shading provided by PV alone, can each provide a water-savings benefit, it will be interesting to see what happens when these two practices are combined. In locations where crop growth does not require irrigation, there may be other benefits that come from regenerative agrivoltaics,” Grell stressed. He also explained that no PV configuration is inherently incompatible with regenerative agriculture. “Be it the common fixed-tilt or single-axis tracking, over the horizontally placed ‘fence type' structures to the canopies used in viticulture, there do not seem to be any constraints due to the regenerative practices. It is more a matter of certain mounting geometries being better suited than others, if the agricultural function involves livestock integration. But that will be the case with conventional solar grazing systems as well.” Grell also emphasized that regenerative agriculture often substitutes biological processes and labor management for chemical and mechanical inputs, thus making regenerative agrivoltaics more labor intensive. “In arid and semi-arid regions such as Southern California, the shade from the panels may provide an added benefit to farm workers, thereby allowing for types of very labor intensive agriculture in areas where heat exposure would otherwise make such farming models impossible,” he also stated. In the study “Regenerative agrivoltaics: Challenges and opportunities in Southern California’s Inland Empire region,” published in Energy Nexus, Grell and his colleagues presented the demonstration site and explored the challenges and opportunities of implementing regenerative agrivoltaics as a land-sharing strategy. The site has six 2.4 m steel columns, each supporting 12 solar modules, arranged for both solar optimization and farm machinery access, with energy stored in a 5.12 kWh mobile battery. The project includes agrivoltaics and control blocks, with sub-plots managed using regenerative and conventional practices in a randomized design. There, the researchers are examining how solar shading combined with regenerative agriculture influences crop yields, soil health, water-use efficiency, and economic viability, with data collected on soil chemistry, microbial life, pollinators, water infiltration, crop production, and energy output. The project evaluates technical, ecological, and economic viability, while informing larger-scale experiments and policy frameworks. Future research should examine real-world economic performance, system design, and scale-dependent effects, including water, soil, and microbial responses. “While large-scale experiments are necessary to reveal hidden or dampened synergistic effects and verify pilot projects’ generalizability, they also have important implications for the social sciences,” the research group concluded. “Determining the economic variability at the agribusiness level involves estimations of upfront investment requirements, on-going fixed and variable costs, as well as revenues generated from the system.” This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
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